Photo courtesy of http://www.newhopechurchpa.org

“We usually do sets of 3 songs, 2 fast and one slower.  We’d like to have extended worship occasionally but how best can we handle that when some of the kids are not mature enough spiritually for more than a few minutes of worship?”  submitted by Dorrie Champagne – Agawam, Massachusetts

Worship is an important part of the Christian life.  It is a time of devoted focus toward God, expressing our love to Him.  In order to develop a heart of worship in children who are new in the faith (or young in age), there are some practical steps you should take.

1)  Understand each child’s journey into worship

As Children’s Leader, we need to take the children on that Sunday’s journey to the place of worship.  Understand that every child is coming from different places into kids church.  This includes the personal atmosphere that each child brings in with them.  Some kids are coming out of Sunday School or small groups where they have heard a lesson, played games, done crafts, ate snacks.  Other kids are coming from a home where there is major stress, may have witnessed an argument that morning, didn’t have breakfast, had too much breakfast, didn’t get enough sleep, don’t feel well, etc.  Be sensitive to each child’s journey, and do your best to help them along the way.

Read the rest of this article here: http://briandollar.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/developing-a-heart-of-worship-in-kids-pt-1/

And the second installment here: http://briandollar.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/developing-a-heart-of-worship-in-kids-pt-2/

Try this creative activity to illustrate listening to God.

Blindfold one person and have him or her face the group while standing about 20 feet away. Have a leader point to one of the other children. The child who’s chosen attempts to move slowly and quietly toward the blindfolded person. The blindfolded player listens carefully for the approaching player and tries to point toward the location of the approaching player. The approaching player freezes once he or she has been located, and then another player is picked to move. The object is to get the kids close enough to the blindfolded player to tag him or her. Once the blindfolded person is tagged, blindfold another child.

Afterward ask, “How easy or difficult was it to hear the approaching players? How is that similar to or different from listening to God?”

Article Source: http://www.childrensministry.com/articles/listen-carefully

This month, I’m starting a new Wednesday feature where I will give you a “Top 10? of mine. I’ll do this on the 2nd Wednesday of each month. This month, I’d like to recommend 10 people on Twitter who you may not follow, but are worthy of following. These are in no set order.

1. @PastorProblems: Hilarious insight that is true to ministry. It’s what you are thinking, but don’t want to say.
2. @thefakekidmin: Distant cousin to @fakekidmin, this guy is hilarious and replies very quickly with snide remarks. So who is this guy anyway?
3. @Dads4L: Dads For Life–great encouragement for fathers.
4. @dc4klinda: Linda Ransom Jacobs, the author of Divorce Care for Kids tweets amazing resources for broken homes.
5. @kidswantanswers: Great leadership stuff from a Saddleback Kids Ministry staffer.
6. @dustinnickerson: One of the CM Directors for Mars Hill Seattle, Dustin has some very poignant tweets. When you work under @pastormark, you’ve got a lot going for you!
7. @hthiew: A children’s pastor in Singapore, Hong-Teck shares some amazing thoughts on spiritual leadership both of yourself and others.
8. @visionaryfam: Rob Rienow’s stuff is awesome. You really should give him a follow and learn from this incredible husband and dad.
9. @PhilCooke: I just learned about Phil and have recognized him as a leadership powerhouse. He has a lot of followers, but I’m not sure if many of us in the Kidmin community have heard of him.
10. @brannongolden: This man puts out the funniest tweets I’ve found. In fact, I’ve got a “Brannon Golden” column in Tweet Deck so I don’t miss one from him!

And of course…this guy.

From: http://freecmstuff.com/2011/07/todays-top-ten

So here’s me. My attempt to explain away my abnormalities.

I am a children’s pastor – never wanted to be one, would never want to NOT be one. I always wanted to be a youth pastor growing up, now would not be anything else. It is a dream come true. to work with kids and families. I LOVE IT.

I am a man – this may seem obvious but there are not tons of us. I found this out the hard way. At a Children’s Pastor conference I went to in the midwest all the men’s bathrooms were converted to women’s bathrooms (ouch) and there were still lines for the ladies room!

I hate flannel graphs – My rule is if you have electricity in your building, city, village. You shouldn’t be using them EVER!

I Love Punk Rock. I know it’s a long way from father Abraham. I like other music to, actually anything but rap or hardcore. I do love worship music as well and my favorite kids worship albums by far are anything hillsong kids.

I think Walt Disney was a genius. – Some people would consider it heresy. I am so amazed at his ability to tap into the child with in all of us and create experiences that are so amazing then when you have kids you want them to share the same experiences you had as a kid. There are definitely some things the church could learn from Walt.

I believe that youth ministry and children’s ministry should be and are inseparable.

I believe that kids ministry today is where youth ministry was in the 80?s – Speaking of which the 80?s was the best decade so far a deadly combination of Hair and spandex. I believe children’s ministry is beginning to move in the minds of the masses from child care to authentic ministry much like youth ministry did starting in the 80?s moving into 90?s.

I like dogs not cats. – Don’t like cats to moody, to freaky.

One day I would love to make a documentary. – it may not be christian or a cartoon and it definitely won’t have Kirk Cameron in it.

David letterman is way funnier than Jay Lenno - even though Jay Lenno is a much nicer guy. Who I met 13 years ago at an in-and-out burger joint in LA.

Read Full Blog Here: http://www.churchleaders.com/children/childrens-ministry-blogs/152597-sam_luce_being_an_abnormal_kidmin_is_ok.html